Monmono Yellow Restaurant and Gallery by Alvan Suen Receives the Bronze A' Design Award in Interior Space and Exhibition Design

Alvan Suen recognized for interior space and exhibition design by the international grand jury of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 20, 2023 /DesignNewswire/ Monmono Yellow Restaurant and Gallery by Alvan Suen, designed for The Montage Group Limited, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Interior Space and Exhibition Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The award was conferred within the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

The Bronze A' Design Award Explained

The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.

More About Monmono Yellow Restaurant and Gallery

Monmono Yellow is a restaurant and gallery located in Central, Hong Kong. The interior is finished entirely in yellow and gold, forming a single-color volume inserted into the busy city. Arches, curved forms and a stair art installation shape the space. Mirrors extend the staircases visually and create the illusion of a tall atrium. Most construction elements were prefabricated and then installed on site, while the terrazzo tables were custom made to match the color tone. The design also serves as a platform for monochrome artworks by local artists.

About Alvan Suen

Alvan Suen is the Managing Director and founder of Nameless Hong Kong Limited, graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor of Art in Architectural Studies. Besides design and running projects, he had been doing research and teaching in the University of Hong Kong as well; his researches and works on the environmental design in the HKU explore the problem of microclimate in the dense cities, solutions for reducing energy consumption in summer through design forms by using air pressure and natural ventilation, reactivating the alleyways between buildings in HK and climate-responsive high-rise residential building design.

Award Record

This recognition makes Alvan Suen a winner of 5 A' Design Awards. The awards span the editions from 2018 - 2019 to 2022 - 2023 of the A' Design Award & Competition.

About the A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award

The A' Interior Design Award is an international interior design competition recognizing good interior designs by interior designers and architects worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to interior designers, interior architects, architects and decorators from all countries. Entries typically include residential interiors, restaurants, hotels, offices, galleries and retail stores. Awarded interior designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/interior

About A' Design Award & Competition

A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://designers.org/146284
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/146284
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!146284
Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/243407
Further Information from the Laureate: https://www.montagegroup.co/monmono

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

###

Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: Monmono Yellow Restaurant and Gallery
Function: Restaurant and Gallery
Category: Interior Space and Exhibition Design
Discipline: Spatial Design
Industry: Architecture and Packaging & Retail
Colors: Dark Goldenrod, Goldenrod, Gold, Saddle Brown and Khaki
Images: 5
Client: The Montage Group Limited

The Recognition

Laureate: Alvan Suen
Country: Hong Kong (China)
Recognition: Bronze A' Design Award
Edition: 2022 - 2023
Design ID: #146284

Credits

Image Credits: Photographer: Tim Lau

Design Details

Unique Properties: Monmono is a restaurant, a gallery, and an art piece. With the brand core of montage, monochrome and monogram, the project aims to position itself as an urban art insertion expressing its obsession with monochrome. The entire structure is fully finished in Yellow and Gold, offering people a novel and surreal feeling of being in the world of art. With the signature arches, stair art installation, and the use of mirrors in a playful way, creating an artistic and interesting abstract space, an art sculpture in the city.
Inspiration: The idea of monochrome is inspired by architectural study models, the beauty of a simple scale pure white object, and the beginning of all projects. What if the city is built with only one color? The buildings, the windows, doors, canopies, vehicles, streetlamps, furniture, the ground and the sky, the entire world is in one color, how interesting would it be? However, it would be an impossible project. Looking at the beautiful city of Hong Kong, which is busy, complex and colorful, what if there is a mass of one single color is inserted into the urban context?
Research: The Monmono project is also a huge art project that aims to insert each single-color restaurant into different parts of the city, using monochrome as a very understandable and compelling theme, using restaurants as a high-traffic daily business, to provide a very unique platform for the local artists to exchange ideas and to have their own exhibition. The strong brand identity has successfully attracted a lot of people to visit and get to know more about monochrome as an art form as well as the artists' works. The artwork to be exhibited in Monmono has to be in monochrome style while the artist's own style is maintained.
Challenge: For styles like industrial, contrast can be made easily by the mixture of concrete, steel, wood and an open ceiling. When it comes to monochrome style, creating contrast simply by use of color is not an option, the use of different textures of materials such as gloss and matt, the use of lighting, the use of dark and bright, etc, have become extra important in this project. Also, the choices of material will also be limited, for example, it is a huge challenge in terms of sourcing of materials for glass, paint, leather, terrazzo and curtain with similar colors, it deeply relies on the products and stock of the material suppliers.
Realization and Technology: Most of the construction elements are pre-fabricated in the factory and installed on-site, to ensure a precise and fine finishing and an efficient workflow. Some of the materials such as terrazzo for the tables are custom-made due to the color tone. In order to make sure the final result is ideal and everything works and fits, the project was mainly created on the computer; rendering is heavily used for testing different materials and calculating lux as well as color temperature for all lighting throughout the entire design process.
Operation and Interaction: As an art piece, the project works as an urban insertion, gathering the art community, and contributing to the city's vitality and local art development. As a restaurant, the zoning and circulation are designed in consideration of the operation flow; a bar is located at the entrance as a reception, while the plumbing and drainage can be shared with the main kitchen at the back, so customers can get a welcome and wait for sit in for dinner; a secondary entry located next to the main staircase is created in the case for a private party is held on the G/F; the 1/F can be booked as an event space while the G/F maintains its daily operation as well; a private staircase connecting to the VIP room...
Project Duration and Location: The project is located in Central, Hong Kong. The design was started in March 2022 and the construction was finished in August 2022.
Specifications: Total Area: 2097 sq.ft. Capacity: 47
Keywords: Monochrome, Yellow, Gold, Asbract, Contemporary Art, Maze, Staircase, Simplicity, Form, Curvature, Surrealism, Gallery, Warm, Positive